After bringing on a new global business lead from Google, Square is making another key executive hire today. The payments company is announcing that Alex Petrov, a former PayPal exec, will be Square’s Vice President of Partnerships.
Petrov was most recently the vice president of retail marketing at PayPal, where he was responsible for merchant marketing and helping launch PayPal into offline retail. He was previously the vice president of consumer brands at Safeway, where he led the marketing and growth of Safeway’s private brands portfolio, including launching over 1,000 new products. Petrov was also a marketing executive at Nestlé.
“Square’s passion for innovation and its relentless focus on the customer experience completely change how retailers can do business,” said Petrov in a release. “I look forward to bringing Square to merchants of all sizes, from local businesses to the largest retailers in the world.”
Square, who just updated its iPad register app to be more restaurant-friendly, says that its adoption among merchants is growing at a faster rate on iPads, where customers are using Square as a full point-of-sale system. iPad customers now represent nearly 50 percent of total payments processed by Square. The average payment volume processed by these customers is also more than double the average volume processed by Square customers using smartphones.
More high-profile brands and partnerships like the Starbucks deal could be helpful for Square when it comes to marketing and branding. We’re told that Petrov will be working on forming these types of partnerships, as well as strategic business development and customer acquisition for Square.